The ancient theater in Cnossos

The theater in Faestos or Phaistos

A theatrical open place with basic similarities to the smaller size that we can see in Knossos is found at the  western courtyard of the palace of Phaistos. It was built during the Old Palace period.

ΚΡΗΤΗ-channel: Φως στο μυστήριο της ακουστικής της Επιδαύρου – Εξ...

ΚΡΗΤΗ-channel: Φως στο μυστήριο της ακουστικής της Επιδαύρου – Εξ...: Η εξαίρετη ακουστική για την οποία το Αρχαίο Θέατρο της Επιδαύρου είναι διάσημο, οφείλεται στα πέτρινα εδώλια του (στα καθίσματα των θεα...

Comedy masks

There were various types of masks in the classic Greek comedy.  The masks with the smiling faces were for the comedies and the sad masks for the tragedies, The actors were chosen by the State, not by the Comic poet.  The poets were using pseudonyms or nick names sometimes.  Aristophanes did so too.

The first three Comedies of Aristophanes-the Banqueters, the Babylonians, and the Acharnians were all brought out in the name of Callistratus; the name of Philonides does not make its appearance until several years later, namely at the Lenaean festival of B.C. 422. Of the eleven extant conledies three-the Acharnians, the Birds, and the Lysistrata-were certainly produced in the name of Callistratus; one, the Frogs, in the name of Philonides; and five-the Knights, the Clouds, the Wasps, the Peace, and the Plutus-in the name of Aristophanes himself. We are not told in whose name the Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae were produced.
A scholar said that "For there was a law  among the Athenians, that no person under 30 years of age should recite a drama in the theatre  or speak in the public Assembly. In obedience to this law therefore the poet, not being yet 30 years of age, recited to the theatre through the agency of Philonides and Callistratus the Comedies he had himself composed." Now if this statement were correct, Aristophanes must have been over 30 when, in 424 B. c., he exhibited the Knights in his own name, and over 27 when, three years earlier, he exhibited the Banqueters in the name of Callistratus. But there is no evidence of such a law fixing the age at which, and not before which, an Athenian citizen was qualified to compete at the Dionysian festivals.
Could you imagine Aristophanes taking part in the competition disguised with a tragic mask?

First Translations

First Translations of Aristophanes plays from Greek to Latin.

The first Latin translation was that of Andreas Divus, published
without the Greek text at Basle in the year 1539. It was a translation of all the eleven Comedies into Latin prose. No doubt the translator expected by his laborious undertaking to earn the gratitude of all subsequent students of Aristophanes; but his translation has been everywhere received with a chorus of derision and abuse. This unfortunate venture was followed, towards the close of the sixteenth century, by two partial translations into Latin verse, both of remarkable excellence. Florent Chretien, the tutor of Henry IV of France, published the Wasps, the Peace, and the Lysistrata as separate plays. The original edition of the Peace, was published at Paris in the year 1589.  And in 1597 the Acharnians, the Knights, the Clouds, the Frogs, and the Plutus were published by Nicodemus Frischlin at Frankfort, in one volume, dedicated to the Emperor Rodolph II. 
Each translator gave the Greek text by the side of his translation, and in each version even the most complex choral odes are given in the identical metres of the Greek, with (especially in the case of Florent Chretien) extraordinary skill and felicity.
But the first complete edition of Aristophanes which contained a Latin translation of all the eleven plays was that of Aemilius Portus in 1607. He gave the verse translations of Florent Chretien and Frischlin, and for the three Comedies which they had left untranslated-the Birds, the Thesmophoriazusae and the Ecclesiazusae-the prose translation of Andreas Divus. 
This arrangement was continued in the editions known
as Scaliger's and Faber's  but in the latter was added the Ecclesiazusae with commentary and Latin prose translation by Le Fevre from whom the edition derives its name. And Andreas Divus was finally shelved by the translation or the Birds by Hemsterhuys and of the Thesmophoriazusae by Kuster. Kuster's own edition (in 1710) contained the eight verse translations by Florent Chretien and Frischliu and the three prose translations by Le Fevre, Hemsterhuys and himself. Bergler turned into excellent Latin prose the eight Comedies translated in verse by Florent Chretien and Frischlin; and his edition, published after his death by Burmann, was the first to contain a complete translation of all the eleven Comedies in Latin prose. 

Plays of Aristophanes

The great classic comedian ARISTOPHANES 

the son of Philippus.

Several Critics guess the particular year in which Aristophanes was born, ranging over the decade from 454 to 444 B. c., but Muller in his History of Greek Literature places the birth of Aristophanes at 452 B. c. or thereabouts, a date which chimes in very well with what Bergk said, in his preliminary note to the Fragments of Aristophanes. According to the indications that have reached us, he can hardly have been born before,  though he may very well have been born after, the year 452 B.C.

Aristophanes, we are told, composed forty Comedies. He was indeed credited with forty-four, but four of these were by the ancient critics pronounced to be spurious. 

Scholars have transcribed the eleven Comedies which have come down to us, in MSS (handwritten documents) which, or copies or partial transcripts of which, have alone had the good fortune to survive the general wreck of ancient literature. Lots of admirable wit and humour, triumphs of expression and fine portraiture of social types in the Aristophanic dramas extant.

Plays of Aristophanes

The Acharnians 

   Written 425 B.C.E 

The Birds 

   Written 414 B.C.E 

The Clouds 

   Written 419 B.C.E 

The Ecclesiazusae 

   Written 390 B.C.E 

The Frogs 

   Written 405 B.C.E 

The Knights 

   Written 424 B.C.E 

Peace 

   Written 421 B.C.E 

Plutus 

   Written 380 B.C.E 

The Thesmophoriazusae 

   Written 411 B.C.E 

The Wasps 

   Written 422 B.C.E 

It seems that the original transcription of these eleven Plays is due to Suidas, who claims saving certain dramas of Aristophanes of the eleven surviving Comedies. The actual date of Suidas is uncertain; and it is perhaps not impossible that the great Ravenna MS. is really the original transcript in the handwriting of Suidas and his assistants. But we are not to suppose that his selection of these eleven Plays met with any general acceptance as the "Select Plays of Aristophanes"; not one of the Byzantine critics draws any distinction between these and the remaining twenty-nine.

Epidaurus

Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus

The Greek theatre history began with festivals honoring the gods. Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, on the northeastern coast of the Peloponnesian Peninsula but it was independent of the city state of Argos. The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus is located at the Saronic Gulf and the modern town Epidaurus it is part of the prefecture of Argolis, and it is very close to the ancient city and the famous theatre of Epidaurus. The Asclepeion at Epidaurus (the sanctuary of the god-physician Asclepius) was the most celebrated healing center of the Classical world . Epidaurus theatre design encompasses open-air spaces. Tragedy, Comedy, and Satyr plays were the theatrical forms. 

 People are gathering into the ancient theater of Epidaurus

to watch the play Lysistrata.